English Department

Rejoining stray infinitives since 2012

[John Ford @PDXFato]

Qatar emptied 7 of 8 stadiums. Brazil turned a $550M arena into a bus depot. Russia stuck Saransk with a 45,000-seat ghost town. America is building zero new stadiums for the 2026 World Cup. Every venue is already packed for the NFL and MLS. No debt. No ruins. Just America.

[Magatte Wade @magattew]

Europe's economy was roughly the same size as the US in 2008.

Since then the US grew 87% while Europe grew 13.5%. The Draghi report found that EU regulations create barriers equal to a 45% tariff on manufacturing and 110% on services.

Europe is literally regulating itself into irrelevance.

Now think about Africa, where the regulatory burden is even worse.

If overregulation can slow down a rich continent, imagine what it does to a poor one.

[Muriel Blaive, PhD @MurielBlaivePhD]

One of the reasons I love Karl Popper is that he got disgusted by the Austrian communists who pushed workers in front of police bullets in order to get many dead and make their point about capitalism being bad.

How is that different today with climate activists pushing the poor to die of heat by refusing to install air conditioning so they can make their point about climate change?

[Jordan Howard @Skwerilleee]

Every time I point out that capitalism is the most moral economic system since in theory it's literally just a series of voluntary transactions between free individuals, leftists always jump in and make the same counterpoint.

"The choices you make in capitalism aren't voluntary because if you didn't work you would starve"

This is a flawed argument.

"Work or starve" is not a feature of capitalism, it's just the default state of existence. Even if we were all hunter gatherers absent any economic system at all, you would still have to perform labor to obtain food and shelter or you would die. They are attempting to blame capitalism for the scarcity inherent to the universe. All capitalism actually is is a fair set of rules applied to that scarce universe. There will always be a mechanism for deciding who gets what, in capitalism that mechanism is consent, whereas in socialist redistributive systems it's violent coercion.

[Charles Murray @charlesmurray]

Thanks. I am happy to see this 32-year-old passage resurrected. It’s as salient now as ever (because little has changed despite Trump’s executive order).

[Rock Chartrand @RockChartrand]

If a child is working because the alternative is starvation, the cruel part isn't the job.

The cruel part is taking away the best option they have while pretending you've helped.

[Paarug Sethi @paarugsethi]

all timer

[Jon 🔬 @JonnyMicro]

All of this. Fuck FDR

[English Department @EngDeptTV]

@HappyNomad14 @jmjones @LockedOnMIZ Tarps Off women section

[English Department @EngDeptTV]

@Rainmaker1973 Why is the dad eating from the child's plate?

[RAW EGG NATIONALIST @Babygravy9]

I still laugh from time to time about a seminar I attended at Cambridge where anthropologists and moral philosophers were talking about morality in cross-cultural perspective and the subject of private property came up. After various know-it-alls suggested there was no deep basis for private property ("cultural construction"), an ethologist piped up, "Have you ever tried to take a banana from a gorilla?" and there was just dead silence for about a minute and then everyone pretended nothing had happened and just continued as they had been.

[English Department @EngDeptTV]

@jarvis_best

[English Department @EngDeptTV]

@C_Hendrick @CathyYoung63 Furious rn

[English Department @EngDeptTV]

@bendreyfuss

[English Department @EngDeptTV]

IYKYK

[celtic Jaime 🍀 @celtic_jaime]

True 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🇺🇸 👶 😂😂😂

[English Department @EngDeptTV]

@Panegyrick @BecomingCritter NEVER FOLD THE WINGS

[English Department @EngDeptTV]

@TansuYegen Fun and games until it goes under the hardwood table and decapitates your baby.

[That's My Michelle @JamelleMyBelle]

Somebody said that World Cup is just the US having a giant sleepover with the cousins we never see because our parents hate each other. 😂

[English Department @EngDeptTV]

This. Typing class turned out to be one of the few enduring skills I learned in high school.

[Fusilli Spock @awstar11]

I got an A and still put two spaces after periods. One of the most useful classes I took in HS, until they shrunk the keyboard onto a phone.

Now, get off my lawn!